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notomy. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
notomy, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
notomy in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
Back-formation from anatomy.
Noun
notomy (plural notomies)
- (dialectal, obsolete) A skeleton; (also figurative) someone emaciated.
1765, Sheridan, “Letter LXXX. To Mrs. Susanna Neville”, in Jonathan Swift, editor, The Works of Dr. Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin, volume XIII, George Faulkner, pages 233-234:They allow me to eat nothing at night but blanchius manſhius, which has made a perfect notomy of me; […]
1806, Rachel Hunter, chapter V, in Lady Maclairn, The Victim of Villan, volume I, London: W. Earle; J. W. Hucklebridge, page 133:Dame Dobs, who nurses Miss, told me a wesk agonie she did not know which of the dear souls would go first, for Madam Howard was a mere notomy with fretting.
1833, Asa Greene, chapter XVII, in The Life and Adventures of Dr. Dodimus Duckworth, A. N. Q., volume I, New York: Peter Hill, page 215:But the good lady, thought she had courage enough to speak, dared not touch the skeleton. […]
"Do, do," said Dody, "take off the notomy!"
"Why don't you get up?" asked Mrs. Whistlewind"
"I can't," said the student, "I can't stir a limb, any more than if a night-mare was a top on me. The notomy is holding me down."
1846, Harry Hieover, Stable Talk and Table Talk; or, Spectacles for Young Sportsmen, 2nd edition, volume I, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, page 298:If he sees a gentleman on a horse that is not a colt, he begins, in a particularly civil voice, "Beg pardon, Sir! what are you axing for the old horse?" Should a servant be on one that looks in good working condition, he begins, with, "Now, then, how much for the notomy? wo, old Step-and-fetch-it: let's look at you" — this of course loud enough to be heard by all by-standers.